The Scourge of Dark Forest
by Ivyvine
Summary: After his death, Scourge wakes up in the Place of No Stars to find out that MoonClan have a job for him—as a torturer of the dead. Just an interesting little idea I had while wondering about Scourge's afterlife. Rated T for obvious reasons.
1. Into the Dark Forest

**This is the first thing I have ever posted here on Fanfiction, so please read and review. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, as I am an aspiring part-time kids' author and this is great practice for me! ****Big thanks to SnuffSnuff for advising me on some parts that needed improving.**

* * *

He woke to cold darkness and eerie silence.

The small black cat reached out with his single white paw and, using his dog tooth– tipped claws for traction, pulled himself up from the damp ground onto his paws. Shaking moisture from his night-dark pelt, he glanced around in confusion at his strange surroundings.

_Where am I?_

_Who am I?_

The black cat could not remember. He glanced warily at the trees all around him—yes, he recalled something about trees from his past, something important—but could see nothing among them except a few scattered colonies of odd glowing mushrooms sprouting from their bases.

"What is this place?" the cat demanded of no one. He heard a rustling of fallen leaves somewhere behind him and spun around. "Show yourself!" he yowled, hackles raising. For some reason he felt a sense of power over other cats, but he couldn't summon up the reason in his blurry mind.

A dark gray tabby tom padded calmly out of the trees. The black cat dug his claws into the leaf-strewn soil and bared his teeth menacingly, hissing, and the gray tabby stopped advancing and held up one paw in a peacemaking gesture. "I see you've finally come to join us, Scourge," the strange cat meowed with a curt nod. "So, welcome to the Dark Forest, or the Place of No Stars as some call it." His yellow eyes bored into the black cat's ice-blue ones, as if wrenching something from deep within them.

_Scourge! I am Scourge! _And along with his name, a thousand memories came flooding back to the black cat: His leadership of BloodClan in the Twolegplace; the pact with the forest cat Tigerstar that had gone wrong, all wrong; and how that same cat, Tigerstar, had died by Scourge's own claws... every memory up to his very last—his throat trapped in the jaws of that ginger fool Firestar, blood leaking endlessly from the terrible gash they'd opened in his neck.

Scourge instinctively lifted a paw to his neck, but the wound seemed to have miraculously healed; his paw pad swiped over nothing except soft fur and the cat and dog teeth that had been strung into the gruesome collar he always wore. He scored his claws deep into the damp soil, bristling with rage. How much pleasure would it give him to rake a gash along Firestar's belly the same way he'd done to Tigerstar!

"You have served myself and MoonClan well, Scourge," the gray tabby—Bane, as Scourge now remembered he was called—told him. Bane seemed to note the black cat's anger before continuing, "And now you shall have powers such as you never could have dreamed of while alive. StarClan are nothing compared to us."

"StarClan?" meowed Scourge, the fur flattening on his shoulders. "The forest cats mentioned the name, but surely there isn't really such a thing, Bane?"

"StarClan are as real as you or me," Bane growled. "I give you my word on that much. They walk their own paths in the skies beyond our borders." Scourge grunted, irritated at being proven wrong. "But our purpose as MoonClan is to torment the wicked dead"—Scourge's ears pricked at the word _torment_—"of the Clan cats. The cats who, in life, put their own ambitions before loyalty to their Clanmates, and were rejected as members of StarClan. StarClan hands those twisted cats over to us, MoonClan, and here in the Dark Forest we stalk them like mice, torturing all we come across."

"Torturers of the evil dead," murmured Scourge to himself, mulling over the possibilities.

Bane's nose suddenly gave a twitch. "I think I smell your first victim," he mewed in an undertone, a terrible gleam shining in his yellow eyes. The gray tom pointed with his tail; Scourge's ice-blue eyes followed.

Stalking silently through the trees several foxlengths from Scourge and Bane was a huge dark brown tabby tom, amber eyes flickering with a dark fire. The tom had not noticed either of them. Scourge immediately knew the cat's identity; he'd know that treacherous shape anywhere.

"Tigerstar," he hissed in a voice just loud enough for Bane to hear. He kept his eyes fixed on the forest cat, but from the corner of his vision he could see Bane wink at him.

"You'll discover your own powers as a torturer soon enough," Bane told him. "Now, go. I'll be watching."

Scourge did not need any coaxing. Screeching, he bolted toward Tigerstar, his huge reinforced claws unsheathed, his mind roaring with a black rage as he ripped through the damp undergrowth toward his despised enemy.


	2. For All Eternity

Tigerstar instantly recognized the black cat streaking toward him; quick as lightning, the dark brown tabby unsheathed his unusually long claws and leaped toward his foe, ready to rip the little Twolegplace cat to shreds. Now that Tigerstar was prepared for the huge, reinforced claws, Scourge would not be getting away with the same trick twice. Tigerstar would slash and tear and flay until there was no part of the puny traitor left to attack. There would be no such thing as mercy for the cat who had torn down everything Tigerstar had ever worked to build.

"SCOURGE!" the former leader of TigerClan yowled as he pelted toward the much smaller cat.

The two cats met head-on; Tigerstar dove out of the way as Scourge aimed a slash at his belly not unlike the one that had cost him all nine lives at once. With a strength born of a desperate hunger for revenge, he spun around and pounced at Scourge, whose eyes widened in surprise as Tigerstar pinned him down by the neck, pushing his nose into the wet soil.

Scourge made a terrible choking noise and flailed wildly as Tigerstar pressed down on his neck, slowly strangling him. The huge tom bent down and whispered into his ear, "This is only the beginning. By the time I am finished with you, you will curse your own mother for ever having kitted you. And still the torture will continue. Forever and ever."

To Tigerstar's amazement, Scourge managed to twist his face out of the muck. His icy eyes blazed with fury as he hissed, "Now... it's my... turn."

With unbelievable force, Scourge whipped onto his back and slammed his hindpaws into Tigerstar's belly, sending him flying. He slammed against the trunk of a tree and fell to the ground, dazed. When his vision cleared, he saw that Scourge had begun to change.

* * *

Scourge felt himself swelling in size. He didn't know how he was doing it, just that it must be one of his powers granted by MoonClan. He felt his shoulders broaden, his ears become more rounded. His collar snapped off his muscular neck as it grew thicker and thicker. The dog teeth on his claws cracked and fell away from the massive, deadly talons that now sprouted from his paws.

He had become a panther.

With a roar that shook the Dark Forest, Scourge charged at his puny prey, pinning him easily with a single claw stretched across his neck. The situation was reversed; now it was Tigerstar who struggled helplessly against his much larger enemy. Scourge's huge heart throbbed with a rush of cruel excitement. If this was what MoonClan cats did for a living, he would be spending a very enjoyable eternity.

Finally Tigerstar seemed to come to his senses and stopped struggling; he was the same domineering cat he had always been in life. He stared boldly up into Scourge's ice-blue eyes and growled, "Traitor! Think of all you have thrown away, fool. Together, TigerClan and BloodClan would have ruled the forest and the Twolegplace. We could have had everything, _everything_! Don't you understand? Have you no loyalty?!"

Scourge lifted his one white paw and batted Tigerstar across the clearing as easily as if he weighed less than a newborn kit. "Loyalty!" he screeched. "What do you know about loyalty? You, who betrayed your Clan and killed countless cats for the sake of your own power? Tell me!"

Astonished, Tigerstar rose to his paws and glared up at his giant foe. "How can you speak of killing? No doubt you killed more cats than I ever laid a claw on, BloodClan scum," the dark brown tabby sneered.

"Idiot! Do you think I killed meaninglessly? That my collar contained nothing but trophies from pointless fights? I killed only cats who betrayed BloodClan!" He looked away into the forest. "My ancestors are known as MoonClan; they walk these empty skies because StarClan cruelly refuse to allow them across the border." His voice seethed with indignation and outrage. "I thought that StarClan were just a story before, but now I can see they're all too real. The dead of my Clan are forced to walk the same skies as murderers and traitors!

"That is why torturers like myself exist," he realized aloud. "We torment only those cats who truly belong here. ..." Scourge turned his menacing gaze back on his victim. Tigerstar's eyes widened with terror as he slowly went on, "Cats like you." Scourge padded toward the tabby tom, each heavy pawstep making the leaves on the ground shudder.

"What are you going to do?" Tigerstar asked, suddenly dropping all pretense of bravery. His limbs shook with fear as the gigantic panther advanced on him.

With an unnatural speed, Scourge flicked out a claw and pressed the tip lightly against Tigerstar's throat, pinning it against a tree. The smaller cat gasped, panic filling his eyes.

"I never want to see you again," Scourge hissed. His voice dripped disgust; there was nothing that could possibly redeem this cat who had never cared about anyone but himself. "You are not even worth torturing."

"Thank you," Tigerstar gasped. "Thank you."

"I'll let my friend deal with you," he went on; "I'm sure you'll have plenty of fun." Behind Scourge, an enormous dark gray tiger appeared, chuckling cruelly. Scourge released Tigerstar and left him behind with the transformed Bane.

"What are you—No... NOOOOO!!"

Screeches of pain and terror rent the humid air as Scourge stalked into the trees, shrinking down to his normal size as he walked. He looked over his shoulder only once, and thought he saw a splatter of bright red in the night. He grunted with satisfaction.

"No... auuughh... please, don't... No... no—AAAAAAAUUUGHHH!!"

Ignoring Tigerstar's screams, padding silently away into the forest, Scourge began to search for his next victim. He was in no rush.

Eternity would be a long time.


End file.
